Ahead Of The Curve

How does the world’s oldest freshwater yacht race handle safety on board? ROB KOTHE talks to organisers and competitors in the Chicago-Mackinac

The first Fastnet Race was held in 1925, the first Sydney to Hobart in 1946, but they are newbies compared to a much less known long-distance race on the world sailing calendar, the USA’s Chicago to Mackinac, the oldest annual freshwater distance race in the world.

It starts in front of Chicago’s skyscrapers and finishes off the tiny Mackinac Island, 289.4 nautical miles away at the top of Lake Michigan. The name is a mouthful, so is often shortened to Chimac or Mac.

The first Chicago-Mackinac race was sailed in 1898, the second was in 1904, and it was then held intermittently until after World War I. Then every year since 1921, in an unbroken sequence of 98 years, there has been another race to Mackinac. Roy Disney’s Reichel Pugh 75, Pyewacket, set the monohull record in 2002 with a time of 23 hours, 30 minutes. The multihull record of 18 hours 50 minutes was set in 1998 by Steve Fossett on Stars and Stripes, the catamaran previously sailed by Dennis Conner in the 1987 America’s Cup.

A lake race it may be, but the conditions can be fearsome. In 1911 winds topped out at 70 knots. In 1937, there were winds of 65 knots and only eight of 42 boats finished. In the 1970 race, there were sustained winds of more than 55 knots. Of the 167 starters, 86 boats did not complete the race.